Monday 19 August 2013

The Folio Society - Edward Lear's Birds

We are very lucky to produce hand marbled papers for The Folio Society.

In February last year we had a meeting to discuss a special project based on David Attenborough's unique collection of Edward Lear's Birds plates.

Together artists and crafts people came together to create a spectacular Imperial volume edition to match David Attenborough's original.

We were asked to reproduce the hand marbled paper to match the original.
It was a very striking design, with a generous speckle of white spots all over the pattern which consisted of dark grey, red and yellow 'veins' with large blobs of grey.

The book was particularly large and meant that one whole sheet would form the front endpaper and another would form the back endpaper!
The book measures a rather large 21 1/4" x 14 1/2"

Take a look at this wonderful volume via the link below which will take you to the Folio Society website.
I love the video of David Attenborough being shown the book for the first time.

What a fantastic project to be involved in!


http://www.foliosociety.com/book/ELB/edward-lear-s-birds

Working Beautifully Artshow

A fortuitous meeting led to an exciting opportunity...

At Jemma Lewis Marbling we love it when we can get involved in local projects to showcase the art of marbling.
Last year we were contacted by Timothy Cumming and Nigel Hudson about a show called 'Working Beautifully' - an exhibition celebrating Swindon and its local towns role in our nations enterprise.

My partner had just bought a car from Tim's next door neighbour and as he had expressed an interested in my business and marbling I gave him a little tour of the workshop!
He mentioned that his neighbour was an artist was profiling 100 local firms for a special project, and suggested he hand him my business card!
I was delighted when Tim called the next day and said he would love to come and meet me and make our company one of the 100!

I really loved the fact that they wanted everything to be as natural as possible, they love clutter, chaos and mess and believed that everything that was real about the work told a richer story.

They loved the area behind my marbling tray which is a something of an ode to Jackson Pollock, layer upon layer of splattered coloured paint!

We think Tim and Nigel portrayed our workshop brilliantly and we love their style.
Why not have a look for yourselves via the link to their site:
You can even purchase one of the limited edition prints.
http://www.working-beautifully.co.uk/gallery-firms-jemma-lewis-marbling

Tim and Nigel had this to say about visiting us and involving us in their work:
 
"We chose Jemma Lewis Marbling because of their tenacious performance over the recession - they've adapted beautifully", says Cumming.
"We've tried to convey the beauty of Jemma Lewis Marbling
, the people and the studio - the studio light, the dexterity of the work and the work's curves and textures. But we also observed the unique human approach they have there and a sense of their natural pride" says co-artist Hudson.
  

Working Beautifully features over seven hundred original digital paintings and photographic composites created by Hudson and Cumming over the last twelve months. The images take a glimpse behind the scenes of the some of the South West's largest and smallest firms. Subjects range from the small - The Sewing Shop, Hatch Engineering and the Magic Kebab House, through to the large - technicians, administrators, managers and support staff of BMW, Nokia Siemens, Intel and Nationwide for example.


All one hundred firms are featured on a 25 metre 'tapestry' created especially for this landmark show. One painting by Cumming and one photographic composite by Hudson will represent each firm.

I hope you like the images they created of Jemma Lewis Marbling, we would love to hear your thoughts. Please do take a look at some of the other pieces of art they created of the wonderful places and people here in the South West.

J ;-)







Wednesday 12 September 2012

A few pictures of me and my workshop...

My little log cabin workshop is quite a hive of activity, most of the time there is an abundance of colourful hand marbled papers covering the work benches, waiting to be packed, sorted, or placed into our special shelving where we keep all of our stock papers.

My workshop was purpose built for marbling and has pride of place in my garden.
I love my commute to work!

 
My lovely little workshop
 
Most of the time I am usually head-to-toe in paint, from the brush-fulls of colour that seem to flick their drops into my face rather than my marbling tray!
 
Here are a couple of pictures of me and unlike 99% of the time I am fairly paint-free!

 
Mixing paint prior to marbling (above) and sorting papers ready to be packed (below)
 
 
 
My working area (above) and busy marbling (below)
 
 
 
Once marbled and 'washed' my papers are hung up to dry flat and a good days work is when all the 'racks' are full!
 
 

 
Coming in my next post I'll be showing you some examples of the matching jobs that I have done for clients, where they require me to match a historic marbled paper for a rebinding project.
 
Back to the tray for now!
 
 
 
 


Monday 10 September 2012

Miss Marbling Makes:

My name is Jemma Lewis and I am a full time paper marbler.

Most of the time I am producing large sheets of hand marbled paper for customers all over the world.

My clients are mostly bookbinders who use my marbled papers as the endpapers or covers of fine bindings. I can sometimes produce upto 1000 sheets of the same design and each sheet needs to be made individually.

My website is www.jemmamarbling.com so please take a look and see how diverse marbled papers can be!

I think that marbled designs are so beautiful and versatile and should have a place in many other aspects of art and design and so forth I am developing a range of home and fashion items all featuring my hand marbled papers - so keep an eye on this blog for how things are developing!